


where hell is must we ever be

by spock



Category: Six (TV 2017)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, Enemies to Lovers, Isolation, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Post-Series, Psychological Torture, ToT: Monster Mash, Trick or Treat: Chocolate Box, Uneasy Allies, Vague Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-22 05:41:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12474720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spock/pseuds/spock
Summary: Mephistopheles: Within the bowels of these elements, where we are tortured and remain forever.





	where hell is must we ever be

**Author's Note:**

  * For [morning_coffee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/morning_coffee/gifts).



It's the lights that tip him off, eventually. He's man enough to admit good craftsmanship when he comes across it, given that it isn't something he sees all that often.

Lights set to flicker on a timer are usually easy to spot. Few organizations take the time to code a pattern that doesn't repeat in a loop that's recognizable at first glance. It takes him five hours of solid focus while counting off the seconds in his head to spot it. Once he does it's a weight off his chest, heart rate decreasing, resolve solidifying. He's got no idea where he is but he's sure that he's dealing with professionals, and that whatever they throw his way, this will be a torture he'll survive.

 

###

 

The man that enters Michael's room is Asian. Kuwaiti, maybe. His coloring has Michael wondering if he might be Pakistani. The nose he sports could belie some Iranian blood, were Michael to lean on stereotypes.

He doesn't waste much time drawing things out after he enters the room. When he speaks, he has a British accent. "Are you ready to speak with us, Michael?"

It's impossible to tell what agency he might be working for, if any. It's clear to Michael that this is all by design.

He isn't used to this much uncertainty. Which is a good sign for him and his side, sure, but it makes for a boring rivalry. Every single story since the dawn of time has boiled down to good verses evil on some level. That's the war he's looking to fight. Good verses incompetence and apathy feels so much more hollow, and is sadly most of what his war has been waged against.

Michael turns to the camera pointed at him from the corner of the room. He speaks directly to it, rather than to the man. "I'd rather not, if it's all the same to you."

The man nods, like it is, and leaves. He comes back again the next day. What Michael guesses to be the next day, at any rate. He's never had the patience for an internal clock. The days he spends in the room are marked by the man entering and asking the same question, over and over, with Michael giving him the same answer.

It takes two weeks for Michael to break, just a little. He's not proud of it, but on the fifteenth day Michael pauses before answering, keeping the man in his room a little while longer. He waits longer the day after that. By the end of the third week he manages to keep the man inside his room for thirty minutes, and that's when they figure him out.

Week four has the man leaving the room within a minute if Michael doesn't answer right away. Michael begins to again, just so that he can have some sort of conversation with another human being, fleeting and contentless as it may be.

Week five and the man stops coming all together. Without the visits Michael loses track of time. The only voice he hears is his own, and that he keeps confined within his own mind. He won't let whoever is watching through the camera get the satisfaction of seeing Michael debase himself.

He keeps busy by exercising. He begins to think of sit-ups as his best friend. The positions he'd learned in the handful of yoga classes he's stumbled into over the years become the most important things he's ever learned in his life.

Michael runs through every single conversation that he's had in his life up until this point, trying to center himself with the knowledge that things haven't always been this way, and there's no reason to assume it won't go back to how it was, eventually.

When he prays he whispers the words so that no sound escapes him, keeping it all between him and Allah. He has no idea if he's ever close to the right time when he does it, but it's always the thought that counts.

Through it all, the light continues to flicker.

 

###

 

Somehow, Michael always manages to fall asleep. He never remembers it happening, yet somehow his mind blocks out the unending light and silence and gives him and his body an undetermined amount of rest. These days it feels like it's coming in shorter and shorter interludes, but still it happens.

One day he falls asleep and the next time he wakes, he's no longer alone.

Michael's thought about the man in front of him a lot since he entered the room. Out of all of the regrets Michael carries with him, he can think of worse ghosts to have haunt him.

Rip licks his lips and shifts where he's sitting on the floor. "Playtime?" He asks. His voice sounds weak and raspy. He's —

Real. He's here.

"You're alive?" Michael asks. His voice sounds just as bad.

"I could ask the same of you."

Michael shakes his head. He digs the tips of his fingers into his chin before sliding them up the curve of his jaw, until his hands are buried into the too-long hair at his nape, tangled there so they can't do anything without his permission. "No. Well, yes" he says, changing tracks. "Process of elimination: you're alive, I'm alive, who would want or need us both? It has to be your people, right? How pissed are they at you? I'm pretty sure mine want me dead and I can't think of another cell that could be this good."

"Ah," Rip says. "Our captors. And here I was thinkin' you were happy that I survived."

Michael allows himself the distraction for a moment. It's been so long since someone spoke to him. Even longer since he heard anything besides the same eight words in some bullshit posh-sounding accent. "Oh, I am."

Rip grins at him, big enough to transform his whole face. Nothing about it looks genuine. Michael's always wondered how a mouth could contain so many teeth. "That's right, you got dibs," Rip says.

Michael has to smile despite himself. It's the only reply he gives.

"'Course I'm glad for the same reason. My boy's bullet didn't see you through to the other side, then?"

"Apparently not." Michael feels smile on his face transform into something meaner, colder. Rip's always been good at bringing this out in him. "Unless this is hell, of course."

Rip nods like it's something he's seriously considering. "Could be."

They stare at one another for a while. The last time they were stuck in a room together like this, Rip and he were chained to opposite ends with tethers that kept them apart. They aren't now, but it feels the same. Michael tells himself that it's the same. He finally remembers to free his hands from his hair. He has no idea what to do with them, setting them down beside his hips at the floor. He'd sit on them if he wasn't so sure that it would expose himself to Rip.

"You seem well," Rip says, eventually.

Michael doesn't think before answering, eager for the conversation to continue, his mind working a mile a minute. "I've been keeping busy." He says it with pride in his voice.

"I can tell." Rip's eyes feel like hands running over him. Michael realizes that he's shirtless, hasn't worn one since the man stopped coming.

"You look," Michael begins to say, and then stops. He looks at Rip. At his gaunt face, the way he cradles his left arm slightly closer to his chest than the other where they're crossed against his middle, one shoulder hunched more than the other. "You look like shit."

The grin is back. "You can tell." There's something in his voice. "I'm better than I was."

Michael wants to ask what that means, but he doesn't want to come across like he cares. He uncurls his fingers from the fists they'd balled into and slides them under his thighs as casually as he can. He watches Rip's eyes as they catch and track the motion. He has to lick his lips a few times before he can speak. It's been a while since he's had to focus on anything and he finds that it's harder to do now than it'd ever been before. "How long have you been here?"

The door to the room opens. Michael looks at it without turning his head, but can't see anyone outside of it. Rip is slow to stand, knees popping as he rises from the floor. He nods at Michael and says, "See you when I see you."

 

###

 

The man still doesn't come back. Rip does.

Michael can never see who it is that leads Rip into the room, but he knows it must be someone. More than likely multiple someones, because Michael knows better than most just how hard it is to keep Rip contained. There's no rhyme or reason to the days where Rip comes and the ones he doesn't. Michael's mind can't keep track of time well enough to find a pattern to it, not like he'd done with the lights when it had all started. He isn't even sure when that had been, when it all started for him.

Rip moves a little easier now, which means he must be healing, which means time must be passing. He never asks Rip about time, afraid that they'll separate them should he bring the topic up a second time.

"They fed me honest to God lettuce earlier," Rip says. He sounds light, teasing. Michael can tell that it's a joke, one so nonsensical that it has to be something they've shared before. He can't remember if it was here or before. He has no idea what it means. He smiles like he does, laughs more out of the feeling that comes from Rip wanting to make him laugh than he ever would at whatever Rip is referencing.

"Me too," he says, because they had.

It's the right thing to say; Rip laughs.

 

###

 

"When you were younger," Michael begins to say, and doesn't bother to finish. He knows that Rip knows where he's going with this. Even if he doesn't, it doesn't matter. Their conversations are filler, nonsense to take up space in the vacuum of time that exists when they aren't in Michael's room together. It's the only sort of conversation that can be had with whoever is on the other side of the camera always watching and listening to them with their cohorts right outside the door, ready to split them apart.

"Yeah," Rip says, like he's agreeing. "It wasn't like that though, not then. It was more."

Michael nods, because that he can relate to. "Course not, but that was where it —"

He waits for Rip to pick up the sentence, but he doesn't. Instead he walks over on his knees to Michael's side of the room.

Michael's eyes tear to the doorway. His starting to sweat, terrified. Nothing happens. Rip sits next to him, back against the wall. They aren't touching. Rip stretches his legs out in front of him, like Michael's are. There's maybe six inches between their feet. They aren't touching.

"Obviously," Rip says, picking up the thread of their conversation. To Michael it feels like the air shifts when he speaks, the heat of his breath so close. "But from that point on I got cleaner about it."

Michael laughs. He doesn't know why. His end of the conversation isn't particularly funny. Rip isn't saying his like it's meant to be. Michael brings a palm up to hide his smile for the second that it exists. When he's done his hand drops into the space between Rip and him. His right hip is about a foot from Rip's left. His hand is now eight inches away from Rip.

"I wouldn't get so cocky," Michael says. "I can't imagine..."

"Now who's getting cocky?" Rip gets his hands under him and lifts his upper body up by pushing on the cold concrete of the floor, adjusting his back against the wall. He leaves them there even after he's sat back down. There's four, five inches between their hands. "That was what, maybe two, three years after you'd barely gotten into grade school? Damn right you can't imagine it."

 

###

 

Rip's voice gets real low sometimes. It carries, echoes. Sometimes Michael can hear it even after he's left, long into the days where they don't bring Rip in.

The next time they're brought together, Rip crosses the room to sit next to Michael. They still don't touch. It becomes routine until their captors stop allowing it. One day Rip sits down after the door's closed and suddenly it's open again. It happens two more times in a row. Rip stops trying after that, going right to the opposite side of the room again, like they'd done originally. It works.

Three visits after that and the door opens before Rip's even got his legs under him to sit, even though he's on the other end of the room from Michael.

The next time the door opens to let Rip in, Michael stands. Rip stays standing too. They eye one another wearily. They don't talk at all. Michael tries to blink as little as possible, looking his fill. When the door opens again for him to leave, Rip says, "Three hours."

It felt longer to Michael. Shorter, too. He doesn't see how Rip had the wherewithal to keep track.

 

###

 

Today, Rip's allowed to sit next to him. It's been a while since that happened. It's making Michael antsy, like he's crawling out of his skin. Their conversation feels like it's being pulled out of him through force. It isn't fair to Rip, so Michael tries. He knows he's failing.

"So your brother liked blondes?" Rip asks.

"We both did." Michael's running on autopilot. He's relayed this story a million times before and so it comes to him easy, not requiring much thought.

"Oh, now I don't believe that," Rip says. "You seem much more of a brunette man, if I do say so myself."

Michael isn't in the mood to be teased. It's been a while since Rip's been in his space for so long. Michael craved this exact thing so much and now, for some reason, his mind wont let him enjoy it. He hates this, hates everything about it. "What the fuck makes you think you know me well enough to say so yourself?"

Rip smiles like a hurricane. Michael feels trapped up inside the sharp glint of it, unable to look away even as he wants to punch each and every perfectly leveled tooth out. "Oh I dunno, game recognizing game, I suppose." Rip says.

Michael rolls his eyes and leans back further into the wall, letting himself hunch into his shoulders a little. Sometimes he can trick his body into thinking that there's someone behind him, someone that he's resting against, pressed up against his back. It's easier to do when Rip isn't around.

"So what I'm wondering is," Rip continues, "If you lied about that, what else is it that you've lied about?"

"I never lied," Michael spits out. "Never, not about my brother."

Rip raises his hands placatingly. "Touchy," he says, like Michael's being ridiculous. Like it's all no big thing, what he's insinuating on either front. "Stretched the truth, then. Insinuation."

Michael decides to let that slide, afraid that a full-blown argument may make them take Rip away. Rip takes it as some kind of cue to keep going.

"Maybe you let your little brother think you liked blonde girls and so he went after them. Didn't you say he was better at everything than you? He still all those girls so that you never had a chance? I think you let him think you liked girls, period, and he went after the ones he liked. What's it that they say, anyway? Best way to avoid coming out is taking up the cloth, right?"

It's such a momentous reach that Michael has to laugh. He noticed that his mood swings were getting more unpredictable six Rip-visits ago. He stopped caring ten visits ago. "Who is they?"

"Oh you know: people." He says it like it's the most nasty phrase in the English language, lips wrapping around every syllable, each letter, like he can taste the word.

Michael's suddenly keyed up again. Too anxious to let anything lay. Suddenly silence seems even worse than being forced to have this conversation. "The fuck does that say about you, then? Running off to be a warrior, living amongst men." Michael does his best to give Rip a run for his money, letting _warrior_ drip out of his mouth with as much sentiment as Rip'd said _people_.

"Exactly what you'd imagine." The grin is back. "Took you a while to catch up with me this time. I was starting to worry about you."

"Don't," Michael says. His voice cracks.

Rip's eyes dart to the door.

Michael's eyes stay on him.

Rip's fingers flex on the ground between them, stretching out as far as they can go. Michael keeps staring at his face, even as he lets his own fingers reach out.

His thumb touches rip's pinky. It's the most intense sensation he's ever felt in his life. Nothing compares, not even the moment that he saw Rip's photo on the news and knew in his heart that he'd finally have his revenge.

Michael decides to go for broke and shifts his entire hand so that it's covering Rip's, laces their fingers together. Nothing happens. Rip kicks his leg over and moves until they're pressed from knee to foot.

Michael's terrified to bring attention to them. Maybe the person behind the camera got distracted for a moment. It could be that they're positioned at such an angle that the camera can't pick up that they're touching. He feels, vaguely, like he wants to cry, in some strange way. He does a little, water leaking from the corners of his eyes that he doesn't dare to wipe away. Rip stares at him hard enough to drive a hole, and he doesn't move to dry Michael's face either.

 

###

 

Rip enters the room and sits next to Michael so that they're touching from hip to heel. Nothing happens.

It's like a dam breaking in increments, a controlled explosion that they didn't detonate.

Rip puts his arm around Michael's shoulders. Michael rests a hand on Rip's thigh. They lean in together like they agreed to do so beforehand. He's got two inches on Rip and yet somehow his head is the one that ends up on Rip's shoulder, most of his weight resting on his lower back to make up for the slight difference in height. He can hear Rip's heartbeat in stereo, the echo of it in Rip's bicep by his ear registering just a second after Michael hears it from the source at Rip's chest.

Michael realizes that he's shaking, but it feels like an out of body experience, like it's happening to someone else and not himself. Rip lays his free hand over Michael's on rip's thigh and shifts until they rest in his lap. Michael can feel his erection.

He's been hard too. Has been for what feels like the entire time since they saw one another last, what had to be days ago. Got that way the moment their fingers brushed. Touching Rip through the fabric of his pants feels almost like touching himself.

Rip's nose nuzzles into his hair. Michael tips his head up and nuzzles back, brushing his lips against Rip's jaw. He shifts, raising up to his full height again, sitting down properly. Rip's still slouching a little, his arm stretched awkwardly where its hooked around Michael's shoulder. Rip has too look up at him to maintain their eye contact.

Rip's eyes are the only pair Michael's seen in a very long time. The memory of them have been all that's kept Michael going for far longer than they've been trapped here, giving him purpose to do what he does.

Rip has to strain himself to meet Michael's gaze. It doesn't seem like Rip wants to do anything else. In a way, Rip's undivided attention is all Michael's ever wanted.

Michael licks into Rip's mouth more than he kisses it. Touches all those teeth with his tongue. The dry skin of his lips catching on Rip's, Rip's fuller beard rasping against Michael's sparser one. He brings a hand up to scratch lightly at Rip's scalp just behind his ear and Rip moans into his mouth. It makes Michael's other hand spasm, the one pressed into rip's lap, and he can feel Rip's cock twitch up in response to the movement.

They keep kissing, slow, wet. Michael gets a leg over Rip's hips and begins to hump into Rip's flank, grinding his dick there. It feels amazing, even though his pants. Best he's ever had. He keeps his hand planted firmly in Rip's lap, still squeezing him. The angle of it all has a lot of his weight bearing down on Rip, balanced where his mouth is locked with Rip's, Rip's head tilted up and back, far more than can be comfortable.

Michael is reminded, vaguely, of a time when he wanted to kill Rip. He could choke him to death now, in this position. Michael could break his neck. He never would; he's never been able to kill Rip. It's a fact of life that Michael's always known, even if he tired to lie to himself about it. Michael's always been able to find a better use for Rip alive than what he'd get out of Rip in death. Michael has a pretty decent use for him right now.

"The camera," Michael says, speaking down into rip's mouth, as if he's breathing the words into him. The words themselves are low, hushed, spoken between a kiss not for privacy but because Michael isn't sure he could stop if he wanted to. He doesn't want to.

"Fuckin' good." Rip doesn't bother to temper his voice. He's almost soft-spoken when he isn't angry and yelling, so Michael has a feeling that it won't carry regardless. He sounds so good. Michael wants to tell him to keep talking. He stares down, enrapt with Rip's mouth. "I hope they record this shit and leak it so that I can fuckin' jack off to it someday. Goddamn," Rip says it all so slowly, all with out taking a breath. The grin returns, what looks to Michael like a hundred teeth glinting up at him. He tasted them all, not minutes earlier.

Michael can't remember why he isn't tasting them now. He moves to fix that.

 

  
###  


 

When the door opens to show him out, Rip's of half a mind to stay there. It's been almost thirty years since the last time he hadn't wanted to move since coming, but the feelings here all the same as they were then. He wonders what it says about him that the last time had also been just before his daddy had nearly belted him within an inch of his life. What's on the other end of that door could be worse. DADT may be gone but Rip knows that this high up the food chain things don't really change all that much, no matter what the laws say.

He stands, knees aching from sitting on that hard floor for so long, lactic acid built up in his muscles from all the twitching he did as he and Michael got off. It's a split second impulse to dip his finger into Michael's mouth before he makes his way to the door and out of it. He doesn't experience a lick of regret after he's indulged it, so Rip doesn't think it was the wrong thing to do.

The men who escort him back to his room are always encased in black from top to bottom, matte lenses shielding their eyes from Rip's view and denying him a glimpse of his own reflection.

He can see himself in Michael's eyes. It's enough.


End file.
